Govt workers to get mid year bonus

EIGHT in every 10 civilian government employees, including those in various local government units (LGU), will receive their mid-year bonus “tax-free” in May with a total amount of P31 billion, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) announced on Friday.

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said the DBM has already issued the specific guidelines on the grant of the Mid-Year Bonus mandated under Executive Order No. 201. The announcement was made 10 days before the May 9, 2016 national and local elections.

“Eight in every ten civilian personnel will receive their mid-year bonus in full, or tax-free under Republic Act 10653, which provides that gross benefits such as the 13th month pay and other benefits not exceeding P82,000 shall be tax exempt,” Abad said.

“These means the majority of civilian personnel will take home their mid-year bonus in full. They are the 970,943 civilian employees belonging to Salary Grades 1 to 16,” he explained.

Executive Order No. 201 was approved by President Benigno Aquino 3rd on February 19, 2016 which provides for a Mid-Year Bonus equivalent to one month basic salary as of May 15 that shall be granted to all positions for civilian personnel as well as military and uniformed personnel (MUP).
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Budget Circular 2016-3 provides the rules and regulations on the grant of said bonus to all civilian positions whether regular, casual, or contractual in nature, appointive or elective, full-time or part time, as well as MUP.

The bonus shall be given not earlier than May 15, 2016.

Funding requirement for regular personnel of national government agencies shall be charged against miscellaneous personnel benefits fund (MPBF) based on the number of filled positions in the Government Manpower Information System as of April 30, 2016.

The requirement for casuals and contractual personnel will be charged against the agency lump sum appropriation from which the salaries of these employees are drawn.

To be entitled, an employee must have rendered at least a total or an aggregate of 4 months of service from July 1, 2015 to May 15, 2016, obtained at least a satisfactory performance rating in the immediately preceding period, and should still be in the service as of May 15.

Those with less than four months of service, or those that are no longer in the service as of May 15, will not be entitled to the bonus.

For GOCCs, the governing board will determine the grant of the bonus charged against approved corporate operating budgets. If funds are insufficient, they may grant at lower rates but at uniform percentage of the basic monthly salary as of May 15.

For LGUs, the Sanggunian will determine the grant of the bonus charged against, and subject to the Personnel Services limitation in, LGU budgets. They may also grant at lower rates but at uniform percentage of the basic monthly salary as of May 15, if funds are insufficient.

1 Comment

We can do better than this. It is a clear example of bad governance. An amount as huge as this could be more promising than just being simply given to non-agonizing individuals. Almost every gov’t worker does not starve, so why not increase gov’t help to the poor and jobless citizens instead? Or use the amount to improve our energy problem? Or to upgrade our ports and irrigation systems? Or use it for job creation? Or… The list is long. This gov’t culture of handing out unnecessary bonuses year after year to not-needy-people, while other more pressing concerns are unsatisfactorily addressed, should stop. .